Post Office Horizon scandal: Will the postmasters receive justice?

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield, and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, where to find New York-style pizza in London. But first, the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry has published the first part of its final report today, which focuses on the human impact of the scandal and compensation for victims. Retired judge Sir Wynne Williams delivered the first part of his findings, having overseen a five-year public inquiry into one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.

0:51Between 1999 and 2025, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of its own sub-postmasters, accusing them of false accounting, of fraud and of theft. Those criminal prosecutions were based on evidence from the Horizon IT system, which was the account system that all postmasters were told to use. In the last few years, it has emerged that the Horizon IT system was riddled with bugs, defects and faults. And those prosecutions were essentially a lie. This was something that the post office and the company it was working with on the technology Fujitsu knew about when they were bringing these cases against the postmasters, putting them in peril of financial ruin, losing their homes and even going to prison.

1:45So far the government has paid over 1 billion pounds in compensation to more than 7 ,000 claimants but hundreds have already died having not received compensation. The Standards Court's correspondent Tristan Kirk joins me now. So Tristan, what are the main objectives of this inquiry which was set up in 2020? It was in response to growing public outrage at the scandal that had gone on for 20 plus years. It's had hearings over the course of three and a bit years about how it is that not only was there systematic prosecution of sub-postmasters based on faulty evidence, but how that evidence was still relied on despite being known to be faulty, and why it has taken just an enormous amount of time for anyone to do anything about it to stop these kind of things happening and to give redress compensation to those victims in this scandal.

2:46And what were the findings from their report which was released today. Today's report from Sir Wynne Williams, who's the chair of the inquiry, is the first half of his findings from the inquiry. And he has given his ruling on the impact of this massive scandal, as well as his judgment on the way compensation schemes have been operating for several years now. There are around a thousand people who were wrongly pursued and prosecuted based on the Horizon IT data system and the insistence that these people had done something wrong. There was criminal cases involving fraud allegations, theft allegations, and false accounting.

3:32236 people served prison sentences on the basis of all of this. It is now known that 13 people took their own lives when embroiled in the scandal. At least 59 people contemplated suicide as a result. And what is widespread among the victims is financial ruin, loss of homes, loss of businesses, and becoming pariahs within their own communities. Because let's not forget, the post office is one of Britain's most trusted institutions. It is a staple of everyone's lives. And the role of the postmaster in charge of that post office still is a highly respected position within a local community. Do you have any specific examples of the people affected?

4:21The inquiry chair to emphasise the impact of all of this has published 17 different stories of people, different aspects of how people were affected. One came from a woman called Tracy, who was just 19 years old when she got a job as a clerk in a post office in South London. she was accused of stealing money and went on to be convicted wrongly based on the Horizon IT system. She received a six-month sentence to be served in a young offenders institution, but in actual fact she was locked up in an adult prison, HMP Holloway. During that period of time when she was behind bars, traumatic enough, she discovered a fellow inmate who had taken in their own life whilst in prison, in their cell.

5:10This young woman emerged from prison traumatised by what has happened to her. And I must emphasise, as I'm telling this story, everything that happened to her was not her own fault. She did nothing wrong. But it has had significant impact over the rest of her life. She struggled to get a job because she had this conviction against her. If she did get a job, she was constantly worried about being accused again. If ever she was asked to cash up the tills, she would make sure a second person was there alongside her, fearful naturally that she might be accused again, even though she's done absolutely nothing wrong.

5:45And she's obviously been left with trauma and anxiety her entire adult life under this shadow. There were stories of a man who was accused of stealing money, was accused by the post office of being responsible for a robbery in which he was the victim, and he ended up walking in front of a bus and taking his own life. So the impact is just vast and hard to encapsulate. What about the delivery of compensation? There are various compensation schemes that have been set up to try to give redress to the hundreds and hundreds of victims of this scandal. The chair of the inquiry estimates that there are over 10 ,000 people who are eligible for compensation when looking at not only the sub-postmasters who were the victims directly, but also their family and people affected whose lives have been turned upside down for years, essentially ruined by what happened.

6:39And the chair says that the compensation schemes are insufficient. People haven't been receiving full and fair compensation damages for what happened. And the post office has put up obstacles and dragged its feet in terms of delivering that compensation, which is pretty hard to believe considering the scandal that they brought about in the first place. So what happens now? So there are two different things that are still to come in the future. The first is the second half of the public inquiries report, which will deliver the inquiry chair's assessment of who exactly is responsible for everything that went wrong.

7:22Not only bringing about these wrongful prosecutions, but also going to extreme lengths to cover up what was happening. And the second aspect, which is not something that's going to happen anytime soon, is the criminal investigation into the leaderships of Fujitsu and the post office, potentially even as high as some people within government, looking at whether there were criminal offences committed by those people in positions of power who knew that the Horizon system did not work, yet it was continually relied on. and the victims in this case were assured that the data was flawless. And if the money had gone missing, then they simply must be responsible, something that we know was utterly untrue now.

8:11And the people who are at the heart of the scandal are really looking for those next steps now. Some saying that today's report is a monumental day. And naturally it is because it recognises in a very public setting, an official way, just how much damage was done. But others are saying that this is just a book unless it delivers some real change and delivers that justice that they want. Let's go to a break. Coming up in part two, pizza fans stay tuned for the best eateries in London to dine on the dish New York style. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

8:59Welcome back. All it takes is three simple ingredients, dough, tomato and cheese, to create the infamous Italian dish that is pizza. But there are infinite varieties available. New York style pizza is renowned across the world and it seems to be growing in popularity in the capital. To find out more, I spoke to The Standards food and drink writer, Josh Barry. So Josh, what's the difference between New York style pizza and Neapolitan pizza? So Neapolitan pizza is sort of floppy, really charred, kind of blistered and very puffy crust on the outside, leopard spotted by the oven. And then sort of you need to kind of use two hands almost and fold it over.

9:44The tomato sauce will be a bit soupy and it will be kind of super soft. whereas a New York pizza traditionally would be a little bit firmer, chewy and crispy. It's still foldable but it holds its shape. And it's taken a while for London to catch onto this trend, hasn't it? It took a while for London to get good pizza generally which is odd considering we've had waves of Italian immigration just as New York has but nowhere near to the same scale. In New York, Italian culture is probably one of the foremost whereas in London it's a mixture of so many different things so maybe pizza just fell a little bit by the wayside pizza express launched in the 60s and that was a big deal and there are a few pizzerias that existed some of which were quite good I think there was a proper Neapolitan pizzeria in Manchester in the 60s actually pizza express launched in the 60s and it brought Roman pizza and it still does an all right job I think it's a bit too expensive now and it's struggling obviously in what might be a bit of a saturated market but then about 20 years ago Neapolitan started springing up and became mainstream thanks to the likes of Franco Manka and so on.

10:49And in the last 10 years, you can't move for Neapolitan. And I'm certainly not complaining because I love it. Now, yeah, the predominant trend is New York. It's taken a while. One thing, you never know whether it's going to land. The perceptions of New York pizza might be just Domino's junk food, but actually New York pizza is an incredible food style with a really rich history. New York has got amazing water because they transport it from the Catskills. That's one of the reasons why they're able to make such good dough and there's just the whole buzz around it the vibe you know one dollar slices whereas London doesn't really have that but people are catching on working out how to make New York pizza here going over and doing trips places like Vincenzo's Gracie's Ace Pizza they're sort of honoring and doing as good a job as it's never going to be exactly the same there are different methods different techniques so do you think we're over sourdough pizza?

11:40No definitely not and also not all Neapolitan pizza is sourdough by the way that's a common misconception I see so many food journalists write this and they're just completely wrong but Franco Manker is sourdough and that's why people think all Neapolitan is sourdough. And where are some good places for listeners to try some New York style pizza? My favourite pizza in New York is Scars which is in the Lower East Side and it's just amazing and it looks like the Ninja Turtles or whatever or the pizza they eat in Friends just really standard a real mix of tomato and cheese just all around and then you pepper the top with parmesan dust and chili flakes and it's just a perfect sort of triangle and it kind of quite flat holds firm but you fold it over there's a lot of oil in the dough in New York pizza so nowhere's doing sort of like scar style New York or John's oblique or all industry like these are kind of serious serious pizzerias that have developed these recipes over decades so you could go to alley cats definitely the vibe and the style and the service and they serve the pizza on metal stands so that's a good one or you want to go to vincenzo's in bushy make the trip it's kind of like traveling to brooklyn from manhattan to go to lucali which is beyonce's favorite pizzeria or you go to gracie's they really care and they put a lot of effort into sort of getting that chew in the middle of the pizza and then the kind of char and really bubbling like super hot oven you know it's like bang and then the cheese is all melting and it's all blistered and just delicious perfect with a beer i like eating pizza with like cheap italian white wine like a suave or a pinot grigio that you probably had back in the day at university but it's just totally like inoffensive and there's barely any taste to it it just kind of cuts through the grease or you could go to ace pizza or chatsworth bakehouse the sandwich shop in crystal Palace where they sort of drop it like a bollocksy Soho fashion house so you've got to go online and get in early and order on like a Monday or a Tuesday or something and then collect it on a Sunday so that builds the hype and the buzz and All Caps doesn't reach that yet but it will because the guy behind it Cap and his partner Jess they run it and he trained in America closer to the Canadian border not New York but the pizzas are sort of like New York style really big pies I could eat a whole one myself.

14:01Crisp, W1, W6, definitely go there. Q, you know, it's truly worth it. I mean, people want to be seen there, right? And they want to do the Instagram, but it is amazing pizza. It feels like a new pizzeria opens every day in the capital. Do you think we've reached peak pizza? I hope more open because I think London pizza is too expensive. New York is just as expensive as London, if not more so. And it manages to do dollar and dollar 50 slices. Pizza is still dough, cheese and tomato. So also anyone that says they use San Marzano tomatoes in a pizza is either lying or an idiot because you don't need to.

14:35Like Vincenzo, he'll talk openly about this. He doesn't. He uses good tomatoes, like really good tomatoes, but they're not San Marzano. The progress and development I want to see is like stalls and little shops with just a counter, not sit down restaurants. Like in New York where you've got a desk, you've got the pizzas ready. They'll slice it up for you and away you go in a bit of paper, a slice for like two or three quid. That would be really great to see.

15:01and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here tomorrow at 4 p.m we'll see you then